Chicago Toddles Its Way To `87

But It`s Spelled T-o-t-t-e-r-s After All That Merrymaking

January 01, 1987|By Steve Johnson.

On the night before America would once again discover that ``hangover remedy`` is an oxymoron, Michael Cole drove a Chicago Transit Authority bus up Broadway and remembered the education stamped into his head on his first New Year`s Eve on the job.

It was 1972 and Cole was driving the South Kedzie Avenue bus near 111th Street. What he learned was this: When, on the most raucous of holidays, the big and little hands reach their apex, popping champagne corks and singing a non-English song are just two of the ways people recognize that occurence.

On that early `70s night, some celebrator chose to welcome 1973 by firing a gun at a CTA bus. Problem was, Michael Cole was inside.

``How many shots?,`` he is asked.

``I didn`t count them. I was on the floor,`` he replied. One pierced a window about halfway back.

``I had less than six months` service at the time,`` Cole said. ``I was horrified. It`s something you never forget.``

By late Wednesday night, a crowd estimated at more than 150,000 had gathered at State and Randolph Streets to herald the new year in a less violent fashion--one that many of them just might forget.

They engaged in the traditional watching of the clock, and when 1987 struck, so did pandemonium.

At 11:54 a.m., meanwhile, Michael Cole was scheduled to be pulling his bus out of the CTA terminal at Ashland and Devon to make the trip back down Broadway. But he was thinking back 14 years.

``I`m right across the street from a large police station,`` he said,

``but it`s still six minutes to midnight. Anything goes.

``Other drivers generally agree that at 12 o`clock you should be somewhere safe or lying down,`` he said.

Where he really wanted to be, Cole said, was home with his wife and four children, but he lacks the seniority to be excused from pulling New Year`s Eve duty.

The partying, he said, he could take or leave. ``I`ve had my day,`` said Cole.

Others, however, were still having it. In a scene that was doubtless repeated at liquor stores throughout the metropolitan area, a clerk at a store on North Broadway reported a run on champagne. And at least one early-evening reveler acknowledged that he would be at Butch McGuire`s pub ``until my wallet or my brain runs out.``

Morris Dearman--another man, like Cole, driving his night away--opined from behind the wheel of his cab, ``If people worked today, they worked half a day. I should`ve worked the neighborhoods. The Loop was just empty.``

He was working while others planned to play, he said, because ``I can get drunk anytime,`` and because Saturday night is a cabbie`s big night and ``New Year`s Eve is supposed to be the epitome of Saturday nights.``

Inebriation breeds abuse, he said. But inebriation also breeds remuneration: ``With drunks it goes both ways. They give you a hard time all the way, but then they tip you five bucks.``

Watching for out-of-control drivers is especially important on New Year`s Eve, Dearman said.

But, he added, ``they`re pushing that drunk driving thing pretty good. I know last year a lot of people told me they left their cars home intentionally `cause they knew they were gonna get a full head of booze. So maybe it`s working to some extent.``

Cole said the CTA`s function on New Year`s is largely to keep the un-sober off the streets. To that end, the agency was offering free rides from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday.

He remains vigilant for drunks on the road, he said, but at times those inside the bus can be an equal headache: ``With a drunk sometimes it`s kind of hard to get him to sit down, and with a person that`s too intoxicated, you can`t even operate with him dancing in the aisles.``

Meanwhile, at Butch McGuire`s, two young data system conversion specialists up from Dallas nursed beers and pledged to hit five or six Rush Street bars before the night was through.